Thanksgiving in Memphis

This year we drove to Memphis tennessee to spend thanksgiving with ben's dads side of the family. To give some background, this family is HUGE like 65-70, 80? people? I don't know...lots and lots and then some more people. Like let's put it as ben doesn't know all their names or who goes with who so I certainly don't! Now because of the size of this family and the fact that everyone is spread out in multiple states, thanksgiving is their BIG holiday. They all come from far and wide and spend the majority of thanksgiving week in memphis. For various reasons, (job, other family obligations, time off, etc.) we haven't made it to this extravaganza since ben and I have been married so this was my first time to meet a lot of these people and definitely their first time seeing aiden. We drove up there on wednesday and wednesday night was the "chilli cook off" different members of the family make different chilli's for tasting and judging along with lots of appetizers, side dishes, just vast amounts of FOOD! Thursday was the HUGE feast and the entire day of games, puzzles, FOOD, football, naps, with 60+ people in one house, there is a lot of different stuff going on! Then friday the men played golf and the women took the children to the zoo although aiden and I didn't get to attend because poor little boy was so pooped I put him down for a nap at noon thinking we would get to go to the zoo but he slept till 4:30 and so there was no zoo for us! Ben played golf though and I got some relaxing reading time so all was well. Friday night was a BBQ cook out and then Saturday morning was a brunch. I am telling you these people do an entire week of FOOD, FAMILY, and FUN! There is even a giant list of everyone coming and what they need to bring/ make for each event. I made 300 (yes 300!!!!!) sausage balls for thanksgiving which were gone in roughly 15-20 minutes! It was amazing! I also made a dessert and of course my spinach dip for the cook out, which was also a huge hit. Look out martha! HAHA. Anyways to sum up the weekend.....Lots of FOOD, aiden was AWFUL, So many people and I still don't know them all, VERY VERY exhausted when we got home! Oh yeah and I also didn't take very many pictures because in the chaos of all of it...it didn't cross my mind very often. Plus to expand on the aiden thing...he was just out of his element. So many people he didn't know, so many things he wasn't allowed to play with and I followed him around pretty much non stop telling him no. It was a hard time for him. I am not sure how often we will get back to the moltz family extravaganza because I have no idea what ben's job/ time off will look like in the future and it is a time commitment but for this year it was nice to see everyone, to get to spend some time with people we rarely see and to have 4 days full of gorging ourselves!! I started my diet the day I got back :)

Aiden on the ride there, he was such a good boy on both the car rides!

Aiden playing in kitchen #1...LOVES it!

Aiden playing outside in his brand new ski coat!

Ben's siblings...Jennifer and andrew

Ben's dad and sister

These are the 22 yr old single "too cool for school" guys...can't ya tell?

Intense game of domino's

putting a 1000 piece puzzle together

And it's done! This thing got completed in roughly 2 hours with all the different people coming and going working on it...I put in 5 pieces all by myself! Yep huge help! :)

Aiden playing with his aunt jennifer, this is the first time he has ever met her

Watching the texas game and having a snack

Sitting with the big boys...cousins

Kitchen #2...LOVES it! This one had a grill!

And now you might be asking yourself so jen you said there were 60+ people there but you seem to have pictures of the same 7 people and the ones that you already knew before going...let me answer that by saying this...APPARENTLY taking pictures of everything is NOT the "norm" as I have been led to believe from the family I was born into. I can tell you that out of the 60+ that were at this extravaganza I was the ONLY person who I ever saw with a camera and the only pictures taken at this event...would be the ones you are seeing right here! So in summary, I stopped taking pictures and especially of people I didn't know since this was my first time meeting these people I didn't want to be talked about as the "crazy camera girl". I plan to ease them into my craziness one year at a time!!!